Traditional media stations, such as online radio stations, are a music streaming and automated music recommendation service, typically provided via an online web browser or computer application. Online media stations are an increasingly popular medium for distributing music content over the internet. Online media stations play musical selections of a certain genre based on a user's artist selection. The user may provide positive or negative feedback for songs chosen by the online media station, which are taken into account when the online media station selects future songs. Other online media stations similar to the online media station selected by the user are recommended to the user based on the musical artist the user originally selected.
As online media stations become more popular a wider variety of customers begin to engage with online media stations. Users can create online media stations and have the best results when they are involved in creating the online media station. However, not all customers are technically savvy enough to create their own online media station with satisfactory results. Additionally, technically savvy customers may not be willing to put in the initial time and effort into tuning their stations during the early stage of usage. Accordingly, an improved method of generating online media stations is needed.
The present disclosure recognizes that the use of personal information data, in the present technology, can be used to the benefit of users. For example, the personal information data can be used to deliver targeted content that is of greater interest to the user. Accordingly, use of such personal information data enables calculated control of the delivered content. Further, other uses for personal information data that benefit the user are also contemplated by the present disclosure.
The present disclosure further contemplates that the entities responsible for the collection, analysis, disclosure, transfer, storage, or other use of such personal information data will comply with well-established privacy policies and/or privacy practices. In particular, such entities should implement and consistently use privacy policies and practices that are generally recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or governmental requirements for maintaining personal information data private and secure. For example, personal information from users should be collected for legitimate and reasonable uses of the entity and not shared or sold outside of those legitimate uses. Further, such collection should occur only after receiving the informed consent of the users. Additionally, such entities would take any needed steps for safeguarding and securing access to such personal information data and ensuring that others with access to the personal information data adhere to their privacy policies and procedures. Further, such entities can subject themselves to evaluation by third parties to certify their adherence to widely accepted privacy policies and practices.
Despite the foregoing, the present disclosure also contemplates embodiments in which users selectively block the use of, or access to, personal information data. That is, the present disclosure contemplates that hardware and/or software elements can be provided to prevent or block access to such personal information data. For example, in the case of advertisement delivery services, the present technology can be configured to allow users to select to “opt in” or “opt out” of participation in the collection of personal information data during registration for services.
Therefore, although the present disclosure broadly covers use of personal information data to implement one or more various disclosed embodiments, the present disclosure also contemplates that the various embodiments can also be implemented without the need for accessing such personal information data. That is, the various embodiments of the present technology are not rendered inoperable due to the lack of all or a portion of such personal information data. For example, content can be selected and delivered to users by inferring preferences based on non-personal information data or a bare minimum amount of personal information, such as the content being requested by the device associated with a user, other non-personal information available to the content delivery services, or publically available information.